All That Glitters
by Daine
Summary: Their secret is out, and the Bayville mutants must now face a world that is not sure what to expect from them. The X-Men and the Brotherhood struggle to deal with betrayal, hardship, and an enemy that may still desire their lives. New chapter 8/17.
1. Part One: Own Me

A/N: Semi-AU. Follows the end of the second season, but because no one knows what will happen next, this will end up not following the show. Focuses on the mutants, mainly the Brotherhood, after the battle with the Sentinels. The Institute is in the process of being rebuilt, and the captured Brotherhood and X-Men members have been rescued. 

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.

All That Glitters **Part One – Own Me**

 ---- "Once you own it, nothing can own you." – Lance Alvers ----

_Pain. Pain, now receding, now intensifying. No, no, don't wake up, not now, not when it still hurts…breathe in. Wince. Breathe out._

_Eyes open._

_Look at the colors. Aren't they pretty? All the colored lights…they're cheerful, almost. He can remember cheerful. Sometimes._

_Frown. No, they're not cheerful. They're scary. They'll swallow him up and destroy him. The lights took her and they'll take him too. _

_Panic._

_Voices. "…special treatment…" "…fast…" Not her voice. Not his either. Confusion. Where was she? Did the colors already take her away? _

_Cough. Struggle. Speak. "Wanda?" Silence._

_Then cold, cold, endlessly cold and piercingly clear: "Give him another dose." _

_Oblivion.   _

*  *  *

"Shit!" 

A tall brown-haired boy massaged his foot gently, glaring potently at the object that had dared come in contact with his toes. After a few moments of angrily muttered curses, he picked up the offending trash can lid and slammed it into place with much more force than was necessary, even if the lid did catch sometimes. 

Lance Alvers dragged the trashcans to the curb in a high bad temper. Mondays were bad enough, he felt, without having to haul stinking trash receptacles outside. He was sure that his housemate Fred had purposefully filled them with enough pizza boxes to sink the Titanic. Mournfully he convinced himself that the trashcans were always heaviest on _his_ days to deal with them. It just wasn't fair!

It didn't help, of course, that the Brotherhood house now was home to what seemed like many, many more people. After the X-Mansion was destroyed, many of the X-Men had moved in with the Brotherhood. Professor Xavier had appeared shortly after Mystique revealed that she had impersonated him for at least two days. Apparently, he had some sort of business out of town and had left in a hurry earlier. Lance wasn't sure what to make of that – what kind of business would make the Professor leave the Institute without warning? And how had he managed to leave without anyone noticing?

At any rate, both the Professor and Mystique were back now. Xavier had returned to find Mystique holding all of his X-Men in a single apartment. In all honesty, though, her attempt to keep them imprisoned were not at all successful – as soon as she left, the X-Men simply used their combined powers to leave the building without harming the other residents. When Xavier arrived, however, the two of them had a fierce battle of wills that resulted in Mystique leaving town and an uneasy truce between the two teams. Both sides were doubtful of just how long it would last.

Their parents had taken most of the younger students home, but the original Xavier recruits managed to stay in Bayville – even Kitty, though how she had convinced her parents not to come and get her after the Institute crumbled was still a mystery to Lance. Not that he was complaining, mind you. 

The final count was as follows – Scott, Evan, and Kurt, as well as Lance, Fred, and Todd, now lived in the dilapidated boarding house, which was currently in the process of becoming less decrepit, thanks to Professor Xavier and his wonderfully deep bank account. It was actually only one more person than they were used to having, but Kurt and Evan ate a _lot_ more than Tabitha and Pietro had. Both of them had either not eaten at all or had scavenged for better food then they had been able to afford. Lance suspected it was the latter – Pietro was fast enough to get away with stealing anything, and Tabitha had been a thief for her father before joining the X-Men and later, the Brotherhood. Hell, he had picked up a few things when the opportunity presented itself, and he was neither super-fast nor an experienced thief. At least, not as experienced as Tabitha.

It was still a sore point for Lance that Xavier was paying to restore the boarding house now that his own recruits lived there, but hadn't cared less about it before then. Still, they had been on opposing sides before. Lance supposed that in all fairness, he really couldn't blame the Professor.

That didn't mean that he wouldn't, though. 

The Professor's finances were also going to support another apartment where Rogue, Kitty, Jean, Tabitha, and Ororo lived together. Nominally, Wanda had a place there too, but she skipped town so often that the room that was supposedly hers had become a storage room of sorts. Last Lance had heard, Kitty had moved her entire collection of CDs in there to protect them from Rogue, who kept threatening to burn them. 

Logan had disappeared completely. He, too, had a room kept empty for him in the Brotherhood's house, but it had never been occupied. Lance had personally taken it over when he decided he couldn't stand Todd's slime on his clothes anymore. However, the Professor seemed unconcerned about the man's absence, so no one else worried either. Not that Lance would anyway. He had seen enough of Logan to last a lifetime, thank you very much. 

And as for Pietro…

Lance's hands tightened involuntarily on the garbage can lids he still held. Pietro had not been seen in Bayville since "the incident," as Kitty had taken to calling it, and it still hurt to think about his betrayal. Lance and the others avoided the topic at all costs.

With an effort, Lance kicked the trashcans the last few feet out to the curb and forced his mind away from depressing topics. He looked at his watch (newly acquired, thanks to Scott – though _he_ didn't know it yet) and swore. 

"Get your asses out here, idiots! We're gonna be late!"

_There's much more planned, if you want it. What do you think? Please review._


	2. Part Two: Control

A/N: Thanks for the response on part one. Someone asked me about pairings – all I will say is that if I do choose to add pairings, they will _not_ be the focus of the story whatsoever. Please read and review. 

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from X-Men: Evolution, and claim no affiliation with the creators for the creation of this fic.

All That Glitters **Part Two – Control**

---- "Scott! I know what Magneto is doing. This thing will alter your mind. Get out of there! Please!" – Professor Xavier ----

__

Memory. He thinks it's memory, at least. It can't be real – reality is cold and harsh and white, not warm and colorful.  

_He isn't alone. He can't see the girl next to him clearly, but he knows he is not alone. He can hear her, hear her laugh and hear himself answer. Happiness and warmth. Play._

_It's been so long since he knew what it was to play…_

_A voice. Not cold as he knows it now. Or was it? Can he see now what he could not see then? Cold, frightening, invading his warmth and his happiness._

_"Pietro! Wanda!" _

_Laughter. Hugs. "Daddy!"_

_No laughter, no warmth. "Come with me." Confused. Follow him. "Look here."_

_Look. Pretty. Red lights, shining from the strange crystals. His mind supplies the word he did not know then – radiation. Entranced. The body next to him reaches out to touch the beautiful crimson rocks. _

_Pain. Shock. No, so beautiful, why does it hurt? Light, light everywhere, no longer red but cold white…run._

_Stop. Gasp. Where am I? Daddy? Where am I? Help me! So far from home…_

_There. He came for me, he saved me. But what's wrong? Wanda? Why are you so sad? How do you do that, Wanda? The lights exploded…I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you mad, don't hurt me, you scare me Wanda…_

_Red light._

_More panic, more pain, more anger. Daddy, why? The light is hurting me, hurting her…why Daddy? Wanda! Why did you have to go away?_

_He woke up screaming. _

***

"Hey! Mutie!" 

Kurt cringed at the harsh voice but did not turn around. It hadn't taken long for most of Bayville to figure out that _he_ was the blue demon they had seen on the news. He still wore his image inducer, but it was a useless effort. Everyone had seen the X-Men and the Brotherhood fighting the Sentinels in the hundreds of replays on television, and when they noticed the absence of his holographic form and the appearance of one blue animal…well. Not everyone was as stupid as he had hoped.

"Hey, don't ignore me, freak! I'm talking to you!"

Kurt turned around slowly. As he suspected, he didn't even know his antagonist. The people who had known him never insulted him to his face.

"Excuse me, were you addressing me?" he said politely, praying that the slight tremor in his voice could not be heard. The boy harassing him was at least three times his size.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you," the boy sneered. "What's a freak like you doing hanging with real people?"

Kurt sucked in a breath, suddenly very angry. He had done nothing to deserve this! "A freak like me is late for class," Kurt retorted, his fear forgotten. "A freak like me also helped keep a huge robot from destroying the city. I am sorry you cannot seem to deal with that." The neanderthal grunted and looked about to charge Kurt, but he had heard all he was going to take for today. "Excuse me," he said, in a tone somewhere between forced politeness and anger. He ported directly to his locker.

There were a few people in the hall that he had just entered. They looked at him in shock and a little fear. He winced. Escaping people had become a lot easier since their powers had become common knowledge, but the looks that he received made the whole thing not worth it. For that reason, most of the X-Men chose not to use their powers too much in public, though they had all agreed that it was pointless to keep them under wraps now.

Kurt opened his locker and grabbed his history book, then checked his watch. He was tempted to simply teleport to class – but no. The looks he had been given earlier still stung. He rushed off down the hallway, pretending not to notice that the few remaining students in the hallway gave him a wide berth.

* * *

Todd "Toad" Tolensky ran around the corner of the school building and collapsed under a gargantuan oak tree. He sat for moment to catch his breath and willed his heartbeat to return to normal. Only after he had gotten himself under control did his companions, who had been sitting under the tree waiting for him, speak.

"Who's after you today?" The dry voice came from Lance. Todd running for his life was not an uncommon occurrence. 

"Matthews again," Todd replied. "That guy has it in for me! I don't even know what I did to annoy him this time." The scrawny mutant stared morosely at his scuffed shoes.

"Don't worry about it," advised Fred. "If he puts so much as one little finger around that building, I'll smash him." A predatory grin crossed the huge youth's face.

"He won't come," said Lance. "He knows this is our place. He wouldn't stand a chance against Fred." Lance then stared at Toad until the younger boy squirmed. "I thought I told you to stay _away_ from Mathews and his friends. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this doesn't look like staying away from them." His voice came out much more harshly than he had intended. 

Todd, his pride already wounded from having to run to his friends for protection, bristled at this comment. "I tried that already, yo. It would help if _they_ wanted to stay away from _me_!" he snapped. 

Lance sat up, his eyes crackling with anger at Todd's tone. The ground rumbled slightly, and Todd backed off. "Hey, sorry, man, I didn't mean it," he protested weakly.

The ground stopped shaking and Lance sighed. "Forget it," he said. "I'm just sick of seeing you get beat up all the time." 

Todd stared. That was the closest to an apology he had ever heard from Lance. _Maybe the Kitty-kat hasn't been so bad for him after all, _Todd thought. "Hey, it ain't so bad," Todd said, attempting to lighten the air. "Now that our powers are out, I can hop out of there no problem. I walked out of the school on the ceiling – right over Matthews' head!"

Fred and Lance laughed and the tension broke. Todd relaxed and took the time to relish the expression on Duncan's face when the football player had realized that Todd was out of his reach.

Lance recovered first and attempted to regain the former serious air. "Be careful not to push him too far, Todd," he cautioned. "He's nothing but a bastard right now, but he could get worse if he decides we're a threat to him. It's been bad lately, but it could be lots worse. Remember that."

"Hey, man, no one messes with the Toad!" Todd joked. But he knew. He knew, always, the precarious balance that the mutant's lives rested on. They had not faced serious persecution past the typical razzing from bullies, but he suspected that was from complete shock and ignorance of how to respond to the reality of mutants rather than any real tolerance. Still, no one was going to push them around – Todd was through with being nothing but a victim. He had been given a way to fight back and he'd be damned if he didn't use it now that he could.

The balance still existed though – the tenuous connection they still had with the rest of the world. If pushed, they would push back – but go just a fraction too far and their status in Bayville would go from an unknown to a threat. Now more then ever was the time to win the world's acceptance, as all of Bayville – and from there, the world – watched to see how they should react. 

"The Brotherhood can take anything those punks can throw at us," Todd said, just managing to keep his voice joking and lighthearted. 

Deep down, he hoped – and prayed – that he was right.


	3. Part Three: Lost

A/N: Thanks for the awesome response on part two – and Neva, sometimes I think you read my mind. 

Disclaimer: X-Men: Evolution belongs to several lucky people, but I am not one of them.

Part Three – Lost _Turn, skid, run. Gasp for air. It's coming, it's going to kill him, danger, run…_

_The voice. Cold but everywhere, filling his mind, his existence, feeling nothing but the emptiness that the voice fills him with – no, not emptiness, completeness, as long as he can hear the voice then nothing else matters…_

_Stop. Fight._

_Filled with fire now. He will make the voice proud. The voice is everything – lord, master, life and death. He lives to obey. He dies to obey._

_Pain. The thing has attacked him. He knew it would, but now there is no fear, no anger; he must obey, attack and kill and hurt…_

_Slammed into a wall. Stifle a cry. He doesn't permit screams. The thing is advancing, coming towards him, **get up!** the voice screams, but he cannot, his leg has stopped working and he's trapped._

_He's seen this before…_

_A moment of confusion breaks through his perfectly blanked mind. A figure advances on him, wants to hurt him. He can see it in her eyes, half-remembered eyes and an obscurely seen form that solidifies beneath them…_

_He whispers the name. "Wanda…"_

_The figure stops. Everything stops. The voice fills his universe again as it commands, harsh, deep, and strong. "Stop simulation!"_

_The voice is nearing him. He struggles to his knees; he cannot be weak, not in front of this, his reason for life. The figure stares impassively at his pitiful efforts. "Bring him to the lab. He obviously needs extra treatment."_

_Lab…vague memories of crimson light and screams and fear flit through his mind. But no, now his body is up and obeying; he must go to the lab, it is impossible to conceive of doing anything else. He limps down an endless hall with only one goal in mind, even as a part of him screams in wordless terror._

***

"Well, find him!" Wanda growled. 

"Wanda, please," the Professor reasoned. "Without Cerebro it is impossible for me to find your brother. Even with Cerebro it was difficult – your brother's mutant signature cannot be identified. Pietro could be anywhere."

"No, he's not _anywhere_, he's here, in Bayville! I saw him!" The lights flickered shortly as Wanda glared at Professor Xavier, barely controlling her growing rage. 

Jean looked on as the Professor tried to reason with Wanda. The girl had shown up out of literally nowhere – Jean hadn't even sensed her presence until she had flung the door open and demanded to see Professor Xavier.

"Wanda, even if you did see Pietro today, there is no guarantee that he is still anywhere in the area. Your father might not even be with him."

"I have no father!" Wanda screamed. A window shattered and the Professor winced. 

"I apologize, Wanda."

Jean had jumped a little when the window had broken. Apparently, Wanda's leave of absence had not improved her temper at all. Once again she wondered what the Professor had been thinking when he told Wanda she could stay with them. True, it would have been cruel to leave her with nowhere to go, but the girl really was out of control most of the time. Anyway, she couldn't have been that desperate for a place to stay if she left before ever staying there, right?

Jean felt a touch on her shoulder and nearly screamed. She had been so intent on watching Wanda's conversation with the Professor that she hadn't noticed anyone coming. She whirled to see Rogue standing behind her. Rogue looked at her quizzically, then peeked around the corner of the hall into the next room. Almost immediately she turned back to Jean with an aggravated expression on her face. A blush colored her cheeks. So the Professor didn't know that she was listening to their conversation. Why should she care what Rogue thought about that?

"He's here," Wanda growled menacingly. "If Pietro is here, so is he. You don't need your damn machine to find someone in a small area. Tell me where he is!"

Professor Xavier sighed. "I will look, Wanda, but keep in mind that Magneto has found a way to block his mutant signature from me. If he has taught Pietro the same thing, then I may not be able to sense him."  
  


Jean frowned. She had traced Quicksilver before and had no problem. The Professor knew that, so why had he told Wanda he couldn't sense Pietro? It wasn't logical.

"You'll sense Pietro. He hasn't learned that yet. He can only manage to blank his mind, not hide it. You'll be able to sense a presence with no thought." The Professor looked mildly surprised at this tidbit of knowledge, but wisely decided not to antagonize Wanda further by asking questions. He sighed softly.

"Very well, Wanda," he said, then shut his eyes as he concentrated. Almost without thinking, Jean did the same. She let her consciousness expand to fill the room, then sent it out over Bayville, searching for the peculiar absence of thought that Wanda had claimed would be Pietro. After a quick search, she found him – or at least, she thought she did. In a moderately large building at the edge of Bayville she sensed a non-presence, an awareness of a being with no thoughts that she could discern. It was a bit creepy, actually – even when people shielded from her she could still pick up a general sense of emotion and _self_. In unnerved her to feel that curious nothingness. 

Jean came out of her telepathic trance at the same time as the Professor. He spoke as she steadied herself. "I am sorry, Wanda, but I could not sense even a trace of your brother. If he was in Bayville earlier, then he must be staying somewhere else. It would be perfectly within his capabilities to run here for an hour and be on the other side of the country before we noticed he had even appeared. I'm afraid that must be the case."

Jean was so shocked by this that she nearly stepped forward and said something. Only Rogue's insistent tug on her shoulder held her back. Rogue looked aggravated and clearly wanted to know what was going on, but Jean only shook her head. Rouge still seemed angry, so Jean held up a finger to signify that she'd tell her later. Mollified, Rouge settled back to watch once more.

Wanda looked indescribably furious about this information, but luckily nothing else exploded. She snapped, "So what am I supposed to do? I have to find him!" The inflection in her voice told Jean that the "him" she referred to was Magneto, not Pietro. A shudder ran down her spine. She couldn't understand how Wanda could be so angry as to want her father dead. The hate that sparked in the girl's eyes chilled Jean to the bone, and she prayed that Wanda's anger was never directed at her. 

"You may have to give up searching for him, Wanda," Professor Xavier said. Keeping his voice calm and soothing, he continued, "Your brother and Magneto are extremely difficult to track. Unless they decide to reveal themselves, it is possible that you may not see them again."

Fury and hatred blazed through Wanda now; Jean felt the sudden blast of emotion as a physical blow. The picture frames on the walls all shattered as she screamed, "I won't give up! I will never stop searching for him until he is dead! I'll make him pay a thousand times over for what he did to me!" 

"Wanda, wait – " the Professor started, but Wanda had already stormed from the room. She slammed the door so hard that Jean expected the pictures would have cracked if they hadn't already been broken. Professor Xavier sat alone in the center of the living room for a moment, then said, "You can come out now, Jean, Rogue."

Jean flushed with chagrin, then slowly walked around the corner of the room, followed closely by Rogue. The Professor stared them down until Jean felt she'd die of shame and embarrassment. "I'm disappointed in you girls," the Professor said sadly. "I thought you would be able to tell when a private conversation was taking place." 

Jean was mortified, but Rogue scowled. "Private? Wanda was yelling loud enough for the whole block to hear. We didn't do anything wrong." Xavier looked at her regretfully, but Rouge didn't care. She pushed past him with her head held high, calling back a defiant, "I'm going out." Jean watched her go, then turned to the Professor.

"Jean?" The Professor's gaze demanded an answer, an explanation as to why she had been eavesdropping. Jean wanted to explain, but instead blurted out, "Professor, why did you tell Wanda you couldn't find Pietro? I could sense him, just inside of Bayville…" her voice trailed off as the Professor looked at her piercingly.

Xavier stared deep into Jean's eyes. "Jean," he said, his voice deep and compelling. "Wanda is in a dangerous state. She cannot be allowed to continue this mad search to destroy her family; it can only bring her grief and might endanger us in the future. Think about it; what happens if she attacks civilians in her quest to find Magneto? The public will decide that mutants are dangerous and become violent. It is better that we give her no encouragement, so that perhaps she will learn tolerance on her own."

Jean blinked, suddenly very confused. Why was she so dizzy all of a sudden? The Professor continued, holding her gaze. "It really is for the best, Jean. It might seem wrong to conceal the truth from her, but it will ultimately be to her advantage. If you think about it, I'm sure you will agree with me."

Jean shook her head, as much as to clear her head as to disagree with him. She didn't understand. The Professor made so much sense, but still…she struggled to come up with a reason why he should be wrong but found nothing. Of course there was nothing. The Professor always knew what he was talking about. He was their mentor and teacher; she was foolish not to listen to him.

"Of course, Professor," she found herself saying. "I'm sure you made the right decision." The Professor smiled at her, and she smiled back. She really was lucky to have such an understanding and intelligent person as her mentor. Without his guidance, she might have made a terrible mistake in judgment.

Jean smiled at the Professor one last time, then walked back down the hall to her room. She needed to lie down - suddenly she had a terrible headache. 

Please review with your thoughts and ideas about the plotline so far. Feedback is my lifeblood.


	4. Part Four: Fight

A/N: Sorry it took so long; I suffered severe writer's block. Someone mentioned that Multiple is an orphan. ::shrugs:: I don't know; I have never read the X-Men comics. All I know is that in the Christmas episode, Rogue and Scott were the only students left in the mansion, so obviously Jamie had to go somewhere. For the purposes of this fic, he and everyone else went home. 

**Part Four - Fight**

---- "Sometimes salvation must be force-fed." – Magneto  ----

_A large room, free of furnishings except for a dais at one end. Crowds of people stand at attention before the stage, arranged in what must be ranks. There are few, less than fifty, but some look capable of much more than a single man should be able to accomplish. There, a fire dancing in fanciful shapes; there, a hulk of a man seemingly coated in silver; there, a man with shocking red and black eyes and a deck of cards. Some are perfectly ordinary, but their normality only enhances the strangeness of the rest. _

A single voice, booming and powerful and deep, rises over the crowd. "Whom do you serve?"

A multitude of voices answers as one.** "Magneto, Master of Magnetism!"**

"What do you fear?"

**"Not life nor death nor any man alive!"**

"Why do you fight?"

**"We fight for the good of all mutants, the destruction of our oppressors, and the glorification of Magneto and all mutantkind. No man shall oppose us and live. We fight for our natural right to dominate, and we follow Magneto until death. There is no fear. There is no pain. There is no wrong. Mutants will conquer all!" **

Lost among the enraptured and fanatical mob, an emaciated boy with dead eyes stands alone. The litany tumbles from his lips, over and over, as he is buried beneath the fervent shouts of the frenzied, seething throng. 

* * * 

Todd sat alone at a lunch table. Despite the young mutant's rather pronounced unpopularity, this was still a rarity in a cafeteria as crowded as Bayville High's. Not to mention that normally he had at least Fred and Lance to sit with. However, neither of his friends seemed inclined to make an appearance today, so he was forced to sit alone. 

_Figures, yo, _Todd thought to himself. _The one day I forget my lunch money the others don't show. _He mentally cursed the school board for taking them off the free lunch program. By their standards, no one nominally in the care of Professor Xavier needed a free lunch. They had managed to hold on to a reduced lunch status, but since Todd was currently broke, even that was not an option.

Of course, Todd was not limited to cuisine from mere cafeteria lines.

Todd looked around the cafeteria with a practiced eye. Within moments, he spotted his target and the next second a long, slimy, green tongue shot through the air to snap up a particularly succulent housefly at a nearby table. The inhabitants of said table jumped in surprise and gave Todd disgusted looks when his tongue invaded their space. "Eeeeww, that is so guh-_ross_!" exclaimed one girl. Todd leered at her and deliberately crunched his fly down. 

Todd spent about two more minutes sitting before he decided that he'd had enough. Who said that lunchtime had to be spent here, anyway? He was stopped, however, by a hesitant voice.

"Um, excuse me? Can we sit here?" Todd looked up and saw, to his disgust, Blue-boy and his freaky girlfriend. Kurt looked like he would rather be anywhere besides where he was; unsurprisingly, it was his girlfriend – _what was her name? Amanda?_ –  who had made the request. Todd ignored her and turned to Kurt.

"So, Fuzzball," he began, "How long did it take her to convince you to come over here?"

Kurt's voice was tightly controlled as he answered, "There's nowhere else to sit, _Toad_." 

Todd looked around and noticed that the many extra seats at the various tables had mysteriously been filled with books, jackets, and purses the moment Kurt had entered the room. He smirked as he turned back to the couple, taunting Kurt with his eyes as he pointedly stared at the psuedo-occupied chairs.

"So, Amanda," he began, ignoring Kurt's warning growl, "What's it like dating a beast? Does all the fur add to the experience? Or is it awkward to have to clean hair out from your – "

Todd's insult was cut short as Kurt lunged at him, fury in every line of his body.

* * *

"So, what was that about?"

Jean turned around in confusion and saw Rogue walking towards her. Jean had left their apartment a few minutes earlier to go meet Duncan, but she still had a throbbing headache. It had started after her talk with the Professor and persisted despite the aspirin she had taken. Needless to say, she was not in the mood to deal with Rogue's cryptic comment. 

"What are you talking about?" Jean answered finally, managing to keep her voice civil. Just because she was in a bad mood did not mean she had to be rude, she reminded herself. 

Rogue, apparently, had no such reservations. She glared openly at Jean. "The Professor? You said you would tell me what was going on."

Jean frowned. "You were there, Rogue. Nothing's going on that you don't know about."

"Don't treat me like I'm stupid, Jean! Something the Professor said upset you. I saw it, so don't even bother denying it."

Jean thought back to that afternoon. She and Rogue had eavesdropped on the Professor after Wanda's surprising reappearance. Jean still cringed inside at the reprimand she had received; she hated disappointing the Professor. Rogue cleared her throat pointedly, and Jean quickly brought her mind back to the present. "Oh, that," she said, laughing uneasily. "It was just a mistake on my part. Nothing big. I talked to the Professor about it and he showed me my mistake." Rogue looked at her skeptically. "It's the truth, okay?" she said defensively.

"Right. The truth." Rogue was still staring at Jean strangely. "Tell me, Jean, is it your truth or is it _his_ truth?"

That comment flew straight over Jean's head. "What in the world do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean. You never question the Professor. You just believe whatever he says all the time. Why did you think he was wrong?"

"Rogue, I already told you. I made a mistake; I shouldn't have been upset. Professor Xavier explained his reasoning to me. And I don't agree with the Professor all of the time." A look made her reconsider her last statement. "Or if I do, it's just because he's right. He's lived a lot longer than we have and knows what's best for us. Why shouldn't I listen to him?"

Rogue shook her head slowly. "Look, Jean," she said, apparently deciding to drop the subject. "Could you just tell me why you were upset?" When Jean hesitated, she said, "If you already know that you were wrong, and I know it, then what difference should it make if you tell me?"

"Why do you want to know so badly? I was wrong, all right? You don't have to gloat over it," Jean snapped. She didn't know why, but part of her brain did _not_ want to tell Rogue the truth at all.

"I am _not_ – " Rogue stopped and took a deep breath. "Humor me, Jean. Please."

"It's silly," Jean said at last. She glanced at Rogue, but the girl's expression gave her no way out. "When the Professor scanned for Pietro, he said that he couldn't sense him." Rogue gave her a _look_. "Well – I could," Jean finished lamely.

Rogue frowned. "Wait – you _could_ sense Pietro? That means the Professor could too." Jean nodded in confirmation. "So basically, the Professor lied to Wanda and sent her off without helping her?"

"It wasn't like that," Jean protested. "The Professor would never do something like that. He did it for her own good. Really," she insisted, seeing the skeptical look on Rogue's face. "What if she hurts someone while searching for her family? What if she finds them and Magneto hurts her? Her anger could get her killed someday, and it will if she keeps searching like this. The Professor couldn't help her do something that would hurt her like that. It wouldn't be right."

"What if she _hurts_ someone?" Rogue repeated. "Do you think that Wanda is just going to give up because the Professor didn't tell her where Pietro was? You're right; her anger could get her into a lot of trouble, but the longer she has to search for them the more likely it is that she _will_ hurt someone. If she found them now, at least we would know when she would confront Magneto. Maybe we could be there to pull her out if things got bad. But we can't do that now, and she'll probably find them somewhere far away and blow something up in the process. Which would be _very_ bad for us."

"I – " Jean was horribly confused, and her head pounded worse than ever. "No. That won't happen. The Professor knows what's best. I'm sure that if there was any danger of that happening, he would have realized it."

"Jean, listen to yourself. 'The Professor says…' 'The Professor says…' " she mocked. "He's just one man. He can make mistakes. And if you can't accept that, then maybe there's something really wrong."

"Like _what_?" Jean nearly screeched. "Dam- I mean –" she stopped, flustered. She _never_ cursed. She ignored Rogue's shocked look and said quickly, "Just tell me what you mean!" She was getting very frustrated, not to mention annoyed. Why had she even bothered to talk to Rogue anyway? They never got along!

Rogue's face suddenly took on a guarded expression. "It's what I said before. Is what you say _your_ truth or _his_ truth?" Jean thought about that for a second before the meaning of Rogue's words hit her.

"Rogue!" she gasped. "How could you say - the Professor would never –" 

"Hey, baby!" Jean looked behind her just as Duncan slung an arm around her shoulders. He grinned at her. "I was just coming to meet you, and here you are!" He laughed loudly. 

Jean smiled vaguely at him, still stunned from Rogue's earlier comment. "Hi, Duncan," she said a bit inanely. She turned to look at Rogue. "I'll talk to you later, okay?" she said, fixing Rogue with a meaningful look. Rogue rolled her eyes but nodded. Jean turned back to Duncan, neatly slipping away from his arm in the same movement. "So, where are we going?"

As Duncan led her away, chattering about his plans for the day, her mind slipped back to her conversation with Rogue. _It can't be, _she thought._ It just can't be._

_Please, please, review._


	5. Part Five: Doubt

A/N: Sorry for the delay. I hope this chapter makes up for it – I think it just might. 

Disclaimer: Not my characters, not my world.

**All That Glitters**

**Part Five - Doubt**

_Her face again. Sometimes he thought he knew that face. Sometimes he saw others, too – vague images that flitted across his consciousness like butterflies. Dark hair and fingerless gloves; overalls and anger; greenish skin and – was that flies? But as he tries to look closer, the images dissolve into nothingness, leaving him alone.  _

Footsteps, his mind registers. He doesn't know where the thought comes from, but some part of him knows it is significant. He lies very still. Maybe if he is very, very quiet, the strange footsteps will not invade his white world. They will allow him to keep the images that come only when the footsteps have been long gone.

"…dose him again?" The words are meaningless. He knew them once, he is sure, but now they hold only a vague knowledge of a threat. He huddles in a ball, drawing deeper into himself.

"No need. He's out cold." The footsteps are close now. A strange sensation covers his right cheek. What happened? From out of his fogged mind a word appears – pain. Another vision swims up – that of huge hands lashing out at another form. That was it. Someone had struck him. 

There. The footsteps are receding, and they have not brought more pain, have not made his veins burn and his eyes water. The images are still his to behold; suddenly they are very, very important. He must not lose them. He lies down and shuts his eyes to the ever-present blinding white light, searching, striving to hold on to the fragments of memory that have not abandoned him. He sees the faces and knows he is not alone.

* * *

Lance stormed down the hallway in a high bad temper. Angrily he yanked his locker open and threw his books inside, suggesting under his breath that his history teacher perform some highly unlikely and biologically impossible acts involving dead animals and kitchen utensils. Who was she not to accept his paper late? He'd actually _written_ the stupid thing, what more could she possibly ask for?

His locker shut with a satisfying _bang_, and he took perverse pleasure in the fact that several freshmen scrambled to get out of his way as he stalked towards the cafeteria. A little voice spoke up inside of him, warning him that people were watching, that they might decide mutants were a threat, but he smothered it easily. He had his powers completely under control, so it didn't matter. 

As he approached the cafeteria doors, he heard the telltale shouts of a fight. He grinned savagely; that was just the thing he wanted to see in his current mood. Maybe watching a few students pummel each other would calm him down.

Lance pushed roughly through the loose ring of students surrounding the scuffling pair. Vaguely he was surprised that the onlookers were staying so far back; usually fights had to break up because one of the participants was thrown into the encroaching crowd. He made his way to the front and froze. So that was why they had stayed so far back.

Todd and Kurt had cleared a rather large space of the cafeteria. He watched in horror as Kurt teleported out of the way of Todd's incoming kick. He reappeared behind Todd and prepared a blow, but Todd anticipated the move and spun around to block it. Todd's slime was everywhere, coating the floor and the two mutants. 

Within seconds, Lance's horror turned to anger. He had _told_ Todd to avoid fighting! He thought Todd understood that they needed people to accept them, and that would never happen if he and the fuzzball kept using their mutant powers to fight in front of everyone! 

Lance's eyes rolled back in his head without conscious thought. A low rumbling filled the cafeteria, centered on Kurt and Todd. They fell away from each other, and Lance immediately stopped his tremor and grabbed Todd by the arm. "Hey, what gives?" the younger mutant protested, twisting to meet his assailant. "_Lance_?"

Lance ignored him and reached out his other hand for Kurt. The boy looked surprised and tried to yank away, but Lance held him firmly. "Don't even think about teleporting," he muttered to Kurt angrily as he pulled them along, away from the crowd. As soon as they were a safe distance away, he growled, "What did you think you were doing? We can't afford to have this kind of negative attention! I thought you understood that!"

Todd squirmed in Lance's hold and answered, "Tell that to Blue Boy, yo! He's the one who jumped me!"

Kurt glowered at Todd. "After what you said about Amanda, you're lucky I didn't do more than just fight you!"

Lance glared at both of them. "I don't care who started it. Both of you should realize that there's more at stake here than your stupid little rivalry!" He shook them fiercely for emphasis. "You got that? I _never_ want to hear word of something like this again!" His fury had apparently cowed the pair into bowing to his authority, at least for now. They both nodded. He released them, feeling an odd sense of accomplishment. 

Todd immediately took off down the hall. Kurt started to do the same, then hesitated. He looked back at Lance. "You know…" Kurt began cautiously. 

"What?" Lance barked. Kurt backed up a step before catching himself.

"It's just…" Kurt shook his head. "You almost sounded like Scott just then, telling us off for doing something stupid."

"_What_?" Lance spun around to face Kurt, ready to deny it, but the younger mutant had already teleported away. 

* * *

Jean walked alongside Duncan on their way to get ice cream, pretending to listen to his chatter. In reality her mind was a million miles away. Specifically, her thoughts were behind her several blocks, back where she had talked to Rogue. Their conversation kept playing inside her head. _"Is it your truth or is it his truth?" _Rogue's voice mocked her. 

She shook her head to clear it. Rogue was being ridiculous. She had actually implied that the Professor would use his powers to control them! That was simply unthinkable!

_Unthinkable_? A tiny part of her asked. Rogue's words came back to her. _"He's just one man. He can make mistakes. If you can't accept that, then maybe there's something really wrong."_ She could accept that the Professor could be wrong. Couldn't she?

"What?" she asked Duncan distractedly. "Oh. Vanilla." She didn't know why he bothered asking her what she wanted; every time they came to this ice cream parlor she got the same thing.

"Boring," Duncan snorted. "I'm getting the He-Man sundae." That was no surprise, either. 

She walked with Duncan over to a table and sat down. Not for the first time, she wondered why he had stayed with her. Certainly Kurt's girlfriend, Amanda, had experienced some extreme harassment for dating a mutant. Maybe the status that came from dating the former most popular girl in school was too great to lose – she knew that no one had stepped forward to claim her throne as Queen of the student body yet. Or maybe – maybe he really liked her. However, that line of reasoning made her distinctly uncomfortable. She had recently begun to realize that her feelings for _him_ were not at all what she had imagined them to be.

_"If you can't accept that…"_ Jean pushed the voice away. "So, Jean, did you see my awesome moves in the game last night?" Duncan began. 

Jean smiled, while cringing inwardly at his inflated ego. "You know I did, Duncan. I congratulated you after the game."

"That's right! Do you remember that one play in the second quarter, when I…" Jean tuned out the rest of Duncan's sentence. She knew what he would say. Out of the corner of her eye she saw three girls enter the ice cream parlor; all of them were part of the "in" crowd and very well endowed. They waved at Duncan, who ignored them as he used his hands to mime his "awesome moves" of the previous night. They looked disappointed and gave Jean angry looks. For a moment their thoughts threatened to overpower her. Jean quickly threw up stronger mental shields, and the foreign thoughts vanished. This was the reason she stayed with Duncan. He had, knowingly or unknowingly, allowed her to fit back into the regular stream of high school life much more easily than her teammates. No one would openly insult Duncan's girlfriend. And there was another reason, one she didn't like to think about, but – 

_It's so easy to be with Duncan,_ Jean thought. His motives were clear and simple; she never had the problem of trying to figure out what he really meant by a certain phrase or action. That quality had led Rogue to comment that he had the brains of a rock, but for Jean it was a welcome relief. The Professor had taught her how to shield her mind from constantly picking up the thoughts of others, but it was difficult to maintain it. If a thought was directed specifically at her, it was nearly impossible to shut it out. Some days she felt so frustrated at the constant bombardment of mental comments that she nearly screamed. On the first day back after the incident with the Sentinels, she had come dangerously close to reaching out with her powers to silence the other minds. Well, that was a polite way of putting it – a more accurate description was that she considered striking them temporarily brain dead, or at least shutting down the part of their brains that thought about mutants. She had stopped herself, but the incident had shaken her. Duncan was much easier to deal with. He simply had no particularly strong thoughts, and the ideas he directed at her were easy to deal with. There was nothing unexpected in his mind.

Duncan stopped talking for a moment, and Jean dutifully filled the silence with compliments on how well he had played. He grinned and started talking again, leaving her with nothing to do but nod and smile at appropriate intervals. Her mind wandered back to her conversation with Rogue. 

It really was ridiculous. Anyone could see that the Professor would not use his students that way. There would be no reason to. He knew that the students would listen to him simply because he was their mentor. There was no need to use his powers.

Oh, no – someone was thinking at her again. Her shields were just not working. She reached out, intent on redirecting that person's thoughts elsewhere – 

And stopped cold.

What was she doing? She couldn't just alter someone's thought pattern like that! Then, as a wave of sickness came over her, she thought, _the Professor – _

The Professor had much stronger mind powers than her. If _she_ had trouble blocking people out, how much trouble would he have? Her thoughts came faster now, tumbling over each other as they came into being. _Maybe he can't. Maybe he _does_ influence the minds around him, just to make their thoughts easier to bear._

No, that was silly, it stood to reason that if his powers were stronger, his shields were stronger than hers as well –

_But I was upset with him after Wanda left_, she thought frantically. _I know I was! There must have been a reason!_ She racked her brain, but she could no longer remember why she had thought Wanda should be told Pietro's whereabouts. She _had_ thought that the Professor was wrong; why couldn't she remember why? 

The answer chilled her to the bone – or at least, _an_ answer. She had no proof…

_"Maybe there's something really wrong." _

Maybe, Rogue, Jean thought at last. _Maybe_. 

* * *

Professor Xavier massaged his temples lightly. Dealing with Wanda and then Jean had taken more out of him than he had expected; Jean's telepathic ability was truly skyrocketing. He smiled with pleasure at the thought of his pupil's success. The Professor then closed his eyes and turned his mind to the X-Men's further training. They had not had many sessions since the Sentinels; he really should schedule a few practices soon – 

A mental tug on his brain jerked him out of his reflection. Evan's thoughts, clear as if he had shouted, poured into the man's brain. _Oh, man, I completely bombed that test, the Professor's gonna kill me, what am I going to do –_ Xavier pulled himself out of Evan's thoughts with an effort. Quickly, the Professor sent a tiny arrow of thought in his direction, an image of Dr. McCoy helping him with any questions he had. _That's it! I'll ask Mr. McCoy!_ Evan thought triumphantly. _He'll help me!_ Xavier sighed in relief as Evan's thoughts turned to other matters; they faded away from the Professor's mind as Evan forgot about dealing with Xavier's supposed wrath.

Charles Xavier was the most powerful telepath in the world, and no amount of shielding could keep out all the thoughts of those around him. With his students, whom he lived with and had emotional ties to, the incoming thoughts were especially strong. Any acutely intense emotion or thought of his students exploded into his head without warning. 

No sooner had Evan's mental "voice" faded than a new one took its place. This time it was Kitty, as she worried about her attraction to Lance. _Like, he's been really nice to me lately, but he was such a jerk before, and…_The Professor shook his head in exasperation. No matter how many talks he had with Kitty, she still returned to this circular pattern of thought. He sent an image of Lance, angry and destroying their old school. She recoiled from the memory. He reinforced it, this time adding a mental command of "stay away." He smiled as he 'heard' her agreement. Lance was simply too emotionally damaged to be good for her. True, he had changed since becoming the default leader of the Brotherhood, but it wasn't enough. He couldn't allow this attraction to go on. How could he face Kitty's parents and tell them that he'd let their daughter run off with some delinquent? 

Kurt's anger exploded in his head, he reached blindly for the source and blocked it. Kurt calmed down. Scott worried about Jean; he soothed it with a touch. At last the invading thoughts grew silent.

The Professor sat back in his wheelchair and sighed. _His_ students would never have the problems that came from broken hearts, reckless action, or thoughtless error. With almost no effort, he could direct their thought patterns in safe, healthy directions that would let them live happy lives. They would never need to be angry or hurt, because he could lead them to understand their enemies and deal with their antagonists. Their thoughts would be pleasant; their lives would be bright.

And he would finally find relief from the minds clamoring to be heard within his head. 

* * * 

Jean glanced around uneasily; this part of town made her feel uncomfortable. Still, the mental signal she had tracked came from here. She raised a hand to the decrepit door and faltered. _This is insane_, she thought. _What am I doing here?_ Her thoughts raced crazily, most of them concerning the stupidity of her actions. Yet some inner instinct told her to press on. What decided her was that the voice telling her to go forward did not come from her mind, but from her heart – she did not know if she could still trust her mind. Jean gathered her courage and knocked on the door.

It took a few minutes before anyone came, and when the door opened, it did so reluctantly. A dark haired figure peered suspiciously around the edge of the door. 

"Hello, I wanted to –" 

The door flew open angrily. The person behind it glared furiously at Jean and hissed, "What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"Can I come in?" The figure hesitated, then took a tiny step away from the entrance. Jean squeezed past into the tiny, filthy room with difficulty. 

The door shut. Jean turned and looked into Wanda's angry eyes. "I have to tell you something." Wanda's eyes narrowed dangerously; she looked about ready to throw Jean out with no questions asked. Jean finished quickly. "It's about Pietro."

Wanda's head snapped up in surprise. She looked at Jean searchingly for a moment, then nodded. Her voice was deceptively soft when she spoke, though it trembled with suppressed rage and anticipation. "Tell me."

_Please review; I desperately need feedback._


	6. Part Six: Encounter

A/N: I prostrate myself at the reviewer's feet and beg forgiveness. This is literally a month late. Better late than never? You decide. I have been purposefully not watching the new episodes so that they won't affect my fic, so obviously, this is AU.

Disclaimer: Still not mine. 

**All That Glitters**

**Part Six – Encounter**

__

He floated in a void where time held no meaning. Vague images flitted across his vision, but he made no effort to grab hold of them. Had he once cared? He couldn't remember. It no longer seemed worth it to try.

Dimly, a strange sensation vibrated through his arm. He discovered that it no longer moved properly. That was odd. He was sure arms weren't supposed to bend like that. Then even that brief awareness faded. 

The pale boy's body went through the motions of daily training flawlessly, earning fewer injuries then all of the other trainees. He didn't notice. His mind was gone, far away from the cold white place where he drilled and fought and prepared to die.

* * *

Three men in lab coats stood around an occupied hospital bed. The motionless figure on it was hooked up to countless machines; their incessant beeping filled the room with sound. The men constantly checked the machines, their patient, and made notes on their clipboards. 

In the next instant the door swung open with a bang, crashing into the featureless white walls of the room and startling the three men. The person in the doorway strode in confidently and stood with his arms crossed. The door swung shut behind him, though he had not so much as looked at it.  

The original occupants of the room looked shocked. One stepped forward hesitantly. "My lord Magneto, is there a problem? You aren't due to check on the patients for – " The man cried out in pain as Magneto raised his hand. He slammed back against the wall, testimony to the awesome power of a genetically-enhanced mutant who had such control over metals that he could even reach the iron in a person's blood.

"My actions are not to be questioned by the likes of you." The voice, despite the cruel incident that preceded it, was cold and impersonal. He turned his gaze to the figure on the bed. "Get him up. I have need of his services." The imposing man turned away immediately, not waiting for a response.

"But…but my lord!" Magneto froze and turned slowly. The man in question quailed visibly and swallowed. "That is to say…I do not mean to question you, of course, but…" Magneto's cold gaze reduced him to stammers. "The patient…he has just received a treatment, as per your orders, of course, and is not in any condition to get up just now…"

With a cry of terror, the second man joined the first against the wall. The third man now stood alone, shaking visibly. "Will there be any problem?" Magneto questioned, as calmly as if discussing the weather. 

"No, my lord," he managed to say. Magneto turned and walked out of the room. After a few stunned moments, the two other men climbed painfully to their feet.

"What are we going to do? He's supposed to be kept docile for eight hours after the dose in order for the drug to fully grip his mind. If we let him go now he still might be able to question orders. I don't even know if we _can_ wake him up!" The second man was nearly hyperventilating.

"We'll have to give him a stimulant. He must be awake when Lord Magneto comes back."

"But we don't know how the drugs will react with each other! It could kill him, and then Magneto would kill us!"

"It won't kill him! The mix of chemicals _could_ damage his brain, but even that's not so bad, since Magneto hired us to make sure the kid can't _use_ his brain." The third man cut off a protest. "It's our only option." He waited until he received two grim nods of acceptance and then gestured to the unconscious form on the hospital bed. 

With that, the three men turned to their patient and got to work.

* * * 

_"He's in a building at the edge of town."_

Wanda stalked through the alleyways on the outskirts of Bayville. Unwashed men leered at her from doorways; she disposed of them with her powers with hardly a backwards glance. All of her attention was focused on her goal. 

_"Past 8th Street, to 23rd Avenue. It's an old-looking building, rather large. I think it used to be a factory of some kind."_

She spun a hard right at the end of an alley, taking brief notice of the road sign she could just make out in a harsh streetlight further ahead. Let Jean talk of openly taking the roads; she wasn't about to risk sauntering down the main roads as if she was simply out for a stroll. If she did that, she might as well call Magneto and tell him she was coming, and she hadn't waited this long for him to escape now. She had certainly wandered these streets often enough in the past months that she had refused to stay on Professor Xavier's charity, though she had never paid attention to the large, condemned factories before. Now she cursed that lack of interest. Her search for her brother and father should have ended long before this.

_"There's sure to be guards. I could definitely sense other presences in the building. You may want to – "_

Wanda snarled. She had cut Jean off as soon as she knew where her brother was. The idiotic X-Man (or was it X-Woman?) actually thought she would give _Wanda_ advice on getting to her father. Wanda had no time for such lunacy. The popular redhead had never encountered Magneto like she had. She knew Magneto's tricks, and while they might have changed in recent years, she doubted it highly. Magneto had lived a long time and had become rather fixed in his ways. Besides, her powers could handle anything Magneto could throw at her.

Her hands clenched into fists, and she bit back a scream of rage. Magneto had made sure that her powers were strong, in ways that had traumatized her during her long years in captivity. Now those same powers he had cultivated were going to destroy him, for they were under _her_ control now. She smiled – how deliciously ironic. 

The windows of the surrounding homes flexed and shattered. 

* * *

Scott walked quickly through the hallways of Bayville High, avoiding eye contact with the other students. It wasn't hard to do – for some reason, the students seemed reluctant to meet the gaze of someone who could destroy the entire building if his glasses slipped. Scott couldn't imagine why.

_There's one perk to all this_, Scott thought, only half joking. _I get to class much faster this way. Everyone avoids me_. 

He called himself on the thought immediately. This was something he could never let his friends see. As much as they moaned and complained about his overbearing attitude and dawn training sessions, Scott knew that his friends – particularly the younger ones – looked to him for guidance. They did not need to know that their so-called fearless leader had doubts of his own – and that one of those doubts, as he saw a group of girls that used to giggle when he passed them turn away with fear and hostility thinly veiled in their eyes, was whether humanity would ever accept them for what they were. 

Scott reached his English class with time to spare. He sat at his desk and studiously ignored the students walking in, who threw apprehensive looks in his general direction. It was sad how quickly he was getting used to that – he didn't even flinch, as he had in the initial days after their powers had been discovered.

The class passed in a blur. Scott didn't remember any of it, though he had dutifully taken notes. He figured he would re-read them later, maybe get some idea of what the lecture had actually been about. 

Near the end of class, his teacher reached over to her desk and held up a stack of papers. "I have graded your Macbeth essays." This pronouncement was met with several groans. She raised an eyebrow. "That was about the reaction I had. People, this is your senior year, not grade school. I found the lack of quality papers among this class truly appalling. I expect many of you will find the motivation to do much better on your next one."

Scott waited patiently as she handed back the essays. He wasn't too worried; he had worked hard on his paper and actually thought he had raised some good points. Then she was at his desk, leaving his paper face down. He picked it up and stared at the grade in utter disbelief.  

_I earned a **D**? **How**?_ He hadn't done this badly in a class since…actually, he didn't think he'd ever done this badly in a class. He flipped rapidly through the pages of his essay, looking for errors marked in his teacher's trademark red pen. He found none.

The bell rang, and Scott walked straight up to his teacher's desk. "Mrs. Rosen? Can I talk to you?" he asked, trying to calm himself. There had to a logical explanation for this – an explanation that was not the one his ever-pessimistic brain insisted was the answer. He composed his thoughts and said, "Mrs. Rosen, I have a question about my essay. The grade on it is a D, but there are no errors marked within the essay, and…" His voice trailed off as a strange look came into Mrs. Rosen's eyes. 

"Ah, yes, Scott. I remember your essay. It was very well written, very…advanced." Scott was doubly confused now. So why had he received such a bad mark? And why did Mrs. Rosen sound so odd? 

With a sigh, Mrs. Rosen turned to look at Scott directly in the eyes. He was shocked but hid it – no one but his fellow X-Men had done that in a long time. "Scott, this essay was written on a level far above that of this class. Given the circumstances, I could come up with only one logical answer." She looked at him as if waiting for something. When he stayed silent, she continued. "You know, Scott, that I keep examples of college essays within my filing cabinet?"

Dread filled his heart as he answered. "No, I didn't know that."

She acted as if she didn't hear him. "I can only assume that you read those essays and took your ideas from them. You know how I feel about plagiarism, Scott."

Scott could hardly believe what he was hearing. He had though Mrs. Rosen had liked him, before…His eyes turned to the filing cabinet. "But your filing cabinet is locked! How could I have gotten in there?" Mrs. Rosen was silent – but her eyes darted to Scott's ruby sunglasses, then away.

Understanding hit Scott like a slap in the face. "You think I used my powers to steal the papers." He didn't need to wait for an answer. "Mrs. Rosen, I would never do something like that! And besides, I can't break into something without leaving it destroyed afterwards!" Upon seeing the look on her face, Scott realized that might not have been the best choice of words.

"I do not pretend to understand your…abilities," Mrs. Rosen said stiffly. "But I do think there must have been a reason that you and your friends sought to hide them for so long. Why would you be afraid to reveal something that was entirely lawful?" The complete absurdity of her argument left Scott speechless. Mrs. Rosen's gaze only grew more stubborn. "Without any evidence to the contrary, I have to assume you cheated. It's only fair to the other students."

"So now I'm guilty until proven innocent? What kind of farce is this?" Scott knew he had gone too far, but he didn't care. A month ago Mrs. Rosen would never have dreamed of accusing Scott of cheating. The complete unfairness of the whole situation had burned away his sense of caution – he valued fairness over almost everything else. "I thought this school was supposed to be above prejudice and discrimination!"

Mrs. Rosen's lips tightened. "I will not hear another word on this subject. The grade stays. And if you continue to argue with me, Mr. Summers, then I will be forced to give you detention." Scott stared at her a moment longer, then spun on his heel and stalked out of the classroom, anger written in every line of his body.

As he struggled with his books at his locker, fury made his hands shake. Scott mentally called Mrs. Rosen every name he could think of and then started over again. Things had been bad over the past few weeks, but he had never thought that his own teachers would turn against him! Somehow he had mentally placed them in a realm outside the prejudiced student body, as people old enough not to take things at face value. Apparently, he had been very wrong.

It was even worse to know that if he complained, nothing would be done about it. The only person he could think of to complain to was Principal Kelly, and he had already established himself as anti-mutant. There was nothing he could do.

Scott was glad that none of his teammates could see him like this. At times like these, he almost seriously considered joining the Brotherhood.

* * * 

Wanda curled her lip in disgust. The building, once she had found it, had been pathetically easy to infiltrate. The security cameras had been no trouble to deal with, and if Magneto had placed guards, she never encountered them. _He puts too much faith in his precious metals, _she thought disgustedly. _As if technology and cameras couldn't fail. Either that, or he hasn't enough fighters to spare for a guard. If that's the case, then his cause is doomed already. _Either way it didn't matter. It was still a huge advantage for her.

The outside of the building had been typical of a factory abandoned in a slum – broken windows, crumbling exterior, and walls that were more graffiti than regular paint. The inside, however, was quite different. The main hallway was painted in pristine white. Even the floor and ceiling were white, with harsh fluorescent lighting lending a sickly feel to the whole place. Many doors and hallways led off from the main passage, and each one Wanda looked into followed the same dead, colorless pattern. 

Wanda kept walking. She figured that Magneto would have his place of command from a place in the center of the building, safe from outside attack yet easily accessible through the main routes. Indeed, his ego would demand that his quarters, whatever they might be, would lie at the end of such a major hallway. That way, anyone coming in would be led straight to him. 

Far away down the hall, Wanda heard footsteps. She cursed underneath her breath, then sprinted back down the hall to a side passage she had noted earlier. She could only hope that the people coming did not need to use this particular hallway. 

"…be away long?" Wanda didn't recognize the voice, but that didn't matter. The next words, spoken by the person's companion, captured her full attention. 

"Not very long. You know Lord Magneto – he thinks this place would fall down around our ears if he wasn't here screaming at us every second."

"I heard that he left to find another doctor."

"Doctor," sneered the second voice. "What would a null know about doctoring mutants? All these nulls running around, actually _working_ for Magneto – it makes me sick."

"Don't worry." Wanda swore she could hear the sadistic smile in the first voice. "When they're no longer needed to keep the trainees in one piece, Magneto will get rid of them - and maybe they'll let us have some fun with them first."

They were close – Wanda turned her face to the wall and held her breath, straining her senses for any hint that the men had noticed her. She allowed herself a cold smile when they passed her straight by, though inside she was fuming at the revelations they had imparted to her unknowingly. Magneto was gone!

Magneto _couldn't_ be gone! To work so hard, and to finally be so close to getting her revenge – she could nearly taste it! She would not let this _stupid_ turn of events stop her! 

For a few moments her rage threatened to consume her. She forced herself to calm down, and as she did so, a thought came to her. Pietro. The little brat had always catered to Magneto's every whim. If she could find him, he would know where exactly Magneto had gone. She clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms. She would get her revenge, and she would get it now. 

Wanda continued down the hallway, this time with a new purpose in mind. She checked each door and glanced down each side passage. Some of the doors had windows in them, and the equipment they revealed reminded Wanda of a hospital or a science lab. She had nearly passed by one of them before she realized what she had just seen. She turned back sharply and peered in through the glass.

Wanda stared. Yes, Pietro was in the room. He sat nearly motionless on the bed in the middle of the stark white room, his pale skin, hair, and white clothes blending in with the walls. She could not remember ever seeing Pietro that still. It shocked her momentarily, but she shook it off. So her brother had managed to tone down the hyper-energy. So what? He would know where Magneto was. He would tell her what she needed to know. And when he had, she could take him down as well for his betrayal.

With her anger sufficiently aroused, she slammed the door open hard enough to nearly take it off its hinges. She let out a wordless scream of rage as she did so, hoping to frighten her brother into submission.

Pietro didn't move. 

She stopped, her anger draining somewhat in confusion. She walked cautiously up to him, ever mindful of a potential trap. Wanda stopped a foot away from Pietro's bed, and still the white-haired teen stayed completely still. 

Wanda began to grow angry again. Was he ignoring her? Was he mocking her? How dare he! She grabbed his chin in her hand and forced his face upwards to direct a glare directly into his face – and stopped in absolute shock.

Pietro's eyes were dull, lifeless. There was no spark of recognition there at all. There wasn't even a sign that Pietro was aware anyone else was in the room. 

She backed away before she realized what she was doing. Her brother's pale eyes frightened her, staring into nothing at all. _Wait, _she thought suddenly. _This could still be all an act. Pietro must know where Magneto is, and he will tell me. Now! _Before she could act on this idea, however, she heard footsteps coming towards the door. 

For the first time in her life, Wanda stopped to consider whether she should fight. Her first instinct was to destroy whoever was coming and hang the consequences. However, her counseling was apparently kicking in, because she found herself considering the ramifications of her actions. If she attacked these people now, Magneto could catch wind of it and escape before she could face him. That was the last thing she wanted to have happen. So for the first time ever, Wanda hid from a fight.

She had closed the door quickly the moment she heard someone coming. Now she darted behind the door as they opened it, then waited until they had moved farther into the room to dash for the exit. She left the door open the barest crack so that she could hear what the men were saying. The two men were apparently blind and deaf, because they had completely missed Wanda's escape. 

"What do you think?" one of the men asked. 

"It wouldn't hurt to dose him again," answered the other.

"I don't know," the first objected. "Look at how dilated his eyes are. He doesn't look like he'll be breaking loose any time soon, and we don't know how an overdose will affect him."

"That's what we thought last time, and when we came back he was trying to pick the lock on the door," snapped the second. "We can't afford to let that happen again." He smirked and added, "Besides, the little bastard's system works so fast that an overdose would leave his system in just a few hours."

"I still don't like it," the first one said, frowning. "We gave him an increased dosage last time, so it shouldn't run out soon. He shows no signs of developing a resistance to it, so there should be no problem. And we've already dosed him easily three times as much as the others!"

"It won't hurt him, his system works too fast. We need to dose him more often. Believe me," at this point a shudder passed through the second man, "I don't plan on offing the boss's kid. If we did that, Magneto might start testing the radiation on us instead."

His companion shuddered as well. "Don't even joke about that – I've seen how this radiation affects people. It's a wonder he's still alive."

"You know, Magneto's been dosing him ever since he was a kid," the second man offered. "Maybe he was introduced to it gradually. He tests all the radiation treatments on the kid before he tries them on himself. That's why the kid's hair is white – the treatments have destroyed the pigments."

"That's not the half of it," the first one sighed. "Did you know there used to be another one? Another kid, I mean. White-boy's twin, name of Wanda. The early radiation experiments Magneto did affected her differently and caused her to lose control of her powers. No one knows what he did with her after that, but she disappeared."

The second man looked startled. "Wanda? That's the name he said last training session that got Magneto so upset! He gave us hell after that, said that if Pietro ever became coherent enough to remember that name then he'd fire us." He shuddered slightly. 

His partner filled in the words he didn't say. "And Magneto never fires anyone who knows as much as we do. He…removes them." He grimaced. "Sometimes I wonder if we're in this too deep." 

The second man ignored this and checked his watch. "Look, we've got others to check on. Do we dose him or not?"

"No," the first one decided. "Magneto will be in here in about an hour with some more of those crystals of his. That should keep him docile enough that we won't need the extra medication."

"I hope you're right," the second said dubiously. "If he mentions her name or anyone else from that hick town he came from, our lives won't be worth a dime."

"They'll be worth even less if we overdose and kill him," reminded the first. "Let's go."

Wanda scrambled to get out of the way and around a corner before the men could see her. She stopped for a brief moment and leaned against the wall, her thoughts whirling. She remembered all too well her father's experiments with DNA-altering radiation – those rays had been what caused her powers to mutate too quickly, too uncontrollably. Those rays had been the reason her father abandoned her. 

She gripped at her hair in frustration. No! She had hated her brother for so long, with such intensity. Her hatred had kept her alive and fighting for all those years locked up. She wouldn't…_couldn't_ change that now. 

She had never thought that Magneto had continued his experiments. Never dreamed that Pietro could be hurting like she was hurt…_No! He **left** me! He left me all alone and never did **anything** to help me and I **hate** him and I want him **dead**…_

But according to those two men, Magneto still experimented on Pietro. He controlled his son through injections, radiation, and the twisted bonds that still joined father and son. That meant that maybe Pietro hadn't wanted to leave her. Maybe he had no choice.

And that was something that Wanda could not deal with.

With a growl, Wanda turned and charged down the hall. Maybe she would find information about Magneto elsewhere. Still, she couldn't help but look back one last time. _Pietro, what the hell is going on?_

_I beg of you to review._


	7. Part Seven: Answers

A/N: ::cringes:: Don't hurt me! I apologize a thousand times for taking so long. I hope you are still interested! Thank you to those of you who e-mailed me and convinced me not to give this story up. I promise, the next updates will be in a more timely manner. 

See previous disclaimers.

**Part Seven – Answers**

_Once he had cared what happened to him. Once he had fought the haze that numbed his mind and limbs. And after he had forgotten why he needed to fight, the vague memory of **something different** was enough to sustain him. _

Now there was nothing but white walls and emptiness and pain. 

* * * 

Kitty stared at her physics homework and closed her eyes. "Sha-_zam_!" she intoned, waving her hands dramatically. She peeked at it again. The problem sheet still lay there, its depressing blankness emphasized by the dark wood of her desk.

"Ohh," Kitty moaned, and sank through her chair to collapse on the floor in a heap. _I can't deal with this today_, she thought. While normally she enjoyed physics, her love of the subject had been somewhat dampened in the last few months. She shuddered at the memory of her last test. She had known the material perfectly – and had still received a C. The teacher, when she could not fault Kitty's answers, removed points for "sloppiness" and "unclear interpretation of the problem." Kitty had not missed the look of revulsion that had crossed her teacher's face and had deliberately walked out of the classroom through the wall rather than the door.

She had used to _like_ her physics professor.

Kitty massaged her forehead slowly. It was hard to be enthusiastic about a class where her grade dropped just for walking into the room. Briefly she wondered why she bothered – it wasn't as if a college would accept a mutant student. She shook that thought away. She would continue to learn because she liked it, and who cared what anyone else thought.

Much to everyone's surprise, Kitty had taken the loss of their secrecy rather well. Perversely, it had taken the rejection of her classmates, rather than the acceptance she had craved, to teach her the simple truth – that her situation was not her fault. That it wasn't a fault at all, just a fact. She was a mutant. She would always be a mutant. Those who hated and condemned her for it were simply bigoted and afraid. It was all the lessons Professor Xavier had taught them from the beginning, but now she understood them. In ways that she herself failed to realize, she was growing up.

So Kitty Pryde largely ignored the snubs and insults from the other students. It wasn't as if she was popular before, she told herself fiercely. In a way, she pitied Jean, who stood to lose so much more. Jean had almost lost her position on the girl's soccer team before the team decided, reluctantly, that there was no one who could take her place. Principal Kelly had been one of the strongest opponents of her continued position. Kitty thought that it was like, major un-cool that her own principal was so openly anti-mutant.

Just because she was growing up did not mean she had stopped being a freshman valley girl. And as a typical fifteen-year-old girl, her mind quickly leaped from the rather depressing topic of her physics class to the equally problematic but far more interesting subject known as Lance Alvers. 

She couldn't help it, really. Just the fact that he was a _senior_ and interested in _her_ was enough to fully engage her interest. Add in the factors of their history together and their status on opposite sides of the mutant war, and it was a sure bet that Lance was never far from her thoughts for very long.

Contrary to popular belief, Kitty wasn't entirely naïve. She understood that when most older guys started looking around to date someone younger, it wasn't because of intellectual interest. She knew that Scott had had more than one "conversation" with Lance on that very topic – Scott was very overprotective of the younger X-Men. For a little while, Kitty had deceived herself into believing that his over protectiveness was a cover-up for deeper feelings, but she realized the silliness of that idea now. Scott had always belonged to Jean – whether or not the older girl chose to acknowledge it.

Without any warning, Kitty's mind had slipped to the problem of Scott and Jean. Jean insisted on remaining with Duncan Matthews, and while Kitty had to agree that he was popular and good-looking and an extremely good catch, she couldn't help but feel sorry for Scott. His feelings for the redheaded telepath were common knowledge, both inside and outside the Institute. 

As she contemplated the sticky situation, her eye fell on a wilted flower on her desktop. It was from the corsage Lance had given her at the Sadie Hawkins dance. She wondered why she still had it.

_Lance_, she thought with a start. She had been thinking about Lance, and gotten distracted. This seemed to happen very frequently. Once more the dark-haired senior filled her thoughts. _I know he was a total jerk to me at first, _she thought, her mind slipping into the worn, tired paths she had been over a thousand times before. _I know the others don't think he's good for me. But he says he cares about me and sounds like he means it. He did go to the dance with me – _

Gosh, the dance. It had been wonderful until those creatures showed up. She had been so angry at Forge and Kurt after she learned that they had unwittingly unleashed the beasts. Why couldn't they have waited to experiment just one more night? It had been totally creepy, those huge red dinosaur creatures popping out of nowhere. Idly she considered doing something really nasty to Kurt to get back at him for it.

It was happening again! She glanced at the corsage and remembered her original train of thought. Why couldn't she manage to hold a thought about Lance in her head? What was keeping her from resolving the situation? 

This couldn't be her imagination – it had been going on for weeks, maybe more. Kitty was literally unable to think about Lance for prolonged periods of time. It was almost like a voice inside her head, distracting her. Sometimes she almost thought she could hear words, telling her to stay away.

Kitty frowned. It was definitely time to talk to Jean.

* * *

Jean was not open to talking.

Admittedly, phasing through Jean's door without so much as a knock and accidentally walking through the phone line while she was talking to Duncan was not the greatest conversation starter. Still, Jean could have been a bit nicer about the whole thing.

"…try to have a _little _respect for others' privacy. If my door is locked, it means that you shouldn't walk right in!" Jean ranted. Kitty stared at her feet and tried to look properly apologetic. Idly she considered Jean's last statement. In how many houses would that even be a problem? The Institute had accustomed her to the strangest things…

Jean finally ran out of words and simply glared at the younger girl. Kitty seized her chance. "Jean, I'm like, really sorry, but this is important!"

"What is so important that you have disregarded all common courtesy?" Jean snapped. Kitty glowered. She was starting to get a little angry herself. For goodness sake, it had been an accident!

Jean noticed Kitty's look and sighed. The Professor counted on her to be a role model for the younger students, and here she was screaming at Kitty. She attempted to modulate her voice. "Look, Kitty, it's been a long day. I'm sorry. What did you want?" 

Kitty hesitated. The problem seemed so clear in her mind, but she didn't know how to say it. "Umm…can I come in?" she asked, stalling.

Jean looked annoyed, but she let Kitty pass. Kitty sat on the bed as Jean closed the door and waited for her to begin talking. Kitty decided to just say it.

"I can't think about Lance." She winced immediately. That had sounded so stupid! Judging by the expression on Jean's face, she agreed.

"You can't think about Lance." The flat statement said clearly that Jean felt she was wasting her time. "Kitty, you interrupted my phone call because you wanted to talk about _Lance_?" She was starting to get angry again. Didn't Kitty get it? Duncan was her one key to normalcy, and if she didn't act like a proper girlfriend to him she would lose it.

"No, that's not it! Well, that's not _really_ it – it's sort of about Lance but mostly it's just -" Kitty composed herself and started again. "Whenever I try to work out my…situation with Lance, or even think about him, I get distracted. No, listen to me!" she cried, seeing Jean's incredulous look. "It's been going on for months. I think about him and then I notice something else, and he just disappears from my head, like someone took him out of it!"

Jean took a deep breath. _I will not yell at her again, I will not yell at her again_, she repeated to herself. Then Kitty's final words fully registered in her brain. _"Like someone took him out of it!" _Her eyes widened, and Kitty leaped at her opportunity. 

"You do believe me! What's going on, Jean?" she demanded. 

_No_, Jean thought. It couldn't be. "No," she said aloud. Kitty's face fell. "You must be imagining it."

Kitty's face was the picture of indignation. "I am not imagining it! Sometimes I can almost hear a voice inside my head, and then I forget all about Lance for a while. It's like there's someone in my he –"

Jean cut her off. "You're imagining it," she said forcefully, if a little desperately. Kitty's words had left her very uneasy. "Now go away and stop bothering me with nonsense." With a few more protests, Kitty left, affronted. Jean buried her head in her hands. 

It was just the timing, that was all. There was a reasonable explanation for why Kitty's story seemed so similar to the way she kept forgetting why she had ever been upset with the Professor. That it came on top of Rogue's warning was just bad timing. It was the combination of these things that made her uneasy, not anything concrete.

"Just imagination," she whispered. She wondered that if she said it enough, she would start to believe it.

* * *

Professor Xavier sat back at his desk and sighed. Feeding and housing this many teenagers was difficult, and his financial backers for the school had withheld their donations "for the time being", they claimed. He still possessed his considerable personal fortune and several profitable investments, but he couldn't count on that forever. 

Deciding he needed a break, the Professor cast his mind out over the town, seeking the ties he had to his students. He noted with irritation that Evan and Kurt were fighting again. He firmly doused them with the mental equivalent of a cold bath, then did the same to their opponents. Both parties slowly backed away from each other. Satisfied, he moved on.

Scott was upset about something – a test, perhaps? He probed further. No, it was an earlier essay assignment. He frowned. Really, didn't Scott listen to anything he said? It was unworthy of an X-man to dwell on insignificant matters. The essay would hardly matter in the future. It was only a matter of time until mutants were accepted.

Still, that didn't mean that he should let his students be exploited in the meantime. He sought out Scott's teacher and instilled a small sense of guilt in her head. It wouldn't be long before it overwhelmed her and she decided that she had been wrong. Scott would be happy to know that the Professor was right and life would improve someday, and an influential teacher would begin to rethink mutant rights. He smiled, pleased at the thought.

He sorted through his mental ties to touch Jean, Kitty, and Rogue. Rogue's mind was always difficult to read, but he could sense enough to know that she was all right. Kitty's problems were easy to set aside. He pitied his young charges, in a way – they were so young, they had no idea how to deal with problems that had such simple solutions. How fortunate they were to have someone older and wiser to guide them through their teenage years. He wished someone had done the same for him when he was younger. 

Jean was worried about Duncan again. The Professor wondered if he'd done the right thing, convincing the boy to continue dating her. He had hoped that Duncan's popularity would improve the mutant-human relationships at the school, but now Jean clung to it with a desperation that was a bit troubling. Eventually, he would have to teach her not to rely on others for self-worth, but for now he would allow the relationship to continue. He could always change his mind later.

The Brotherhood boys were the hardest to reach, as he had only limited interaction with them. He listened enough to be sure that they were doing nothing dangerous or illegal before moving on. 

Lastly, he cast his mind in the direction of Magneto's warehouse. He knew all about Magneto's plans for an army – while Magneto himself could conceal his presence from Cerebro, his followers could not. Their training, while impressively thorough, was not enough to cause him to worry. There were hardly enough of them, for one thing. If he ever believed they were a threat, he would pass on an anonymous tip to the police about a mutant training facility. Of course, he would make sure everyone knew that the tip came from another mutant. Anything to better his cause.

At that last thought, Xavier had an idea. He reached out to instill the same sense of guilt that he had used on Scott's teacher in the minds of his former financial backers. After all, he thought to himself, it was all for the students' good.

* * *

Wanda stalked down the hallways of Bayville High, ignoring the strange and fearful looks she was getting. The pathetic fools didn't even know she was a mutant – they judged her completely from her exotic clothing and dirty appearance. She sneered nastily at one in passing and took some satisfaction in the way he jumped back. 

She growled as she turned a corner. This was getting her nowhere. The halls were nearly empty, as school had let out hours ago. The only people left were the ones involved in sports, drama, or band. She had hoped to find a member of the Brotherhood here, perhaps hanging out at cheerleading practice, but she had found no one. Abruptly she decided to take matters into her own hands. 

The next person she saw was a skinny girl leaving the bathroom. Wanda swooped up and grabbed her by the shirt. "You. Do you know Lance Alvers?" 

The girl looked terrified. Wanda realized that in her fury, the lockers had begun to shake. She calmed down slightly and demanded, "Well?"

"Lance…he's one of the mutants, isn't he?" the girl stammered. Wanda glared furiously and shook the girl hard. 

"Slime like you shouldn't breathe the same air as mutants, if that's all you care about. Tell me where he is!"

"But I don't know!" cried the girl. She was still scared, but a bit of defensive anger began to come into her eyes. "And what gives you the right to say that to me?"

Wanda smiled coldly, and her aura flared blue around her – a blatant display of her power. "That does." The girl quailed.

"I don't know, exactly, but I've heard that he and the other mutants hang out in the old car lot – my parents told me not to go down there – " Wanda released the girl with a shove. It disgusted her to be in contact with someone so pathetic.  

"Hey!" the girl shouted as Wanda stalked off. She hardly noticed. If she couldn't get a reaction out of Pietro, perhaps his friends could.

* * *

A fly buzzed lazily though the air in the old junkyard. A _snap_ echoed through the air as Todd halfheartedly pursued it with his tongue. He missed, but it hardly mattered. Todd's attitude about the "outing" of mutants had progressed from shock to elation to fury in the last few months; these days he hovered between anger and apathy. This was one of the apathetic days. 

Who cared if he couldn't catch a fly now? Thanks to Cue Ball's money, he no longer needed to eat them. Now that the Brotherhood and the X-freaks had called a ceasefire, improving his accuracy with his tongue didn't matter anymore. _In fact, nothing really matters anymore_, he thought glumly. W_hat am I supposed to do after high school? Can't get into college anyway, no one will hire a mutant when there's plenty of "normal" people wanting jobs…I never had much of a future, but this one is even crappier than I expected._

He was jolted out of his comfortably familiar depressing thoughts by a huge hand shaking his shoulder. The gesture was not meant to be violent, but his body flailed back and forth all the same. "Jeez, Freddy! What was that for?" he cried, getting his wind back and rebalancing himself on the rusted hood of a car. 

"Stop doing that," Fred answered shortly. 

"Doing what? Man, I was just sitting here," Todd whined, but his voice trailed off when Fred glared at him.

"You know what."

Todd muttered furiously to himself but didn't retaliate. He did know what Fred was talking about. The big mutant had an uncanny sense of when Todd was wallowing in self-pity and seemed to consider it his civic duty to stop him. Fred believed that brooding wouldn't solve any problem, and while Todd agreed, he still insisted that a good tantrum could make a person feel a whole lot better. Of course, neither of them had actually said all that – as a rule, Fred spoke as little as possible and Todd only talked about things that were of no consequence – but they knew it just the same. Theirs was an odd friendship, but it suited them. 

Lance shifted to a more comfortable position. He lay flat on his back on the roof of an old Ford, taking pleasure in not having to think for a moment. Lazily he echoed Fred. "He's right. You sulk enough for all three of us."

"Just 'cause I'm the only one who knows what's going on here doesn't mean I sulk too much, yo!" Todd exclaimed. Lance, too warm and sleepy to continue the argument, made a rude gesture in Todd's general direction and closed his eyes again.

But his pleasant afternoon had been spoiled by Todd's comment. Todd was wrong. Lance knew perfectly well that all three of them had rather unpleasant lives to look forward to. He was actually surprised that widespread lynching of mutants was not already commonplace. Todd knew that, of course – they had all come to terms with the harsh realities of life a long time ago.

_Don't think about it_, he advised himself. _Just relax…_Kitty's face passed before his closed eyes, and he flinched away from the fresh wound. He should have known that she was too preppy, too…_X-men_ to want anything to do with him. _Don't think about that either_.

Lance had almost drifted into a doze when he heard a yelp from the nearby car. This was too common an occurrence to bother him, but Todd's voice held a different note in it then usual. It sounded surprised and a little…frightened? Frowning, Lance opened his eyes and sat up.

He was rudely confronted by Wanda's blazing dark stare. 

_Please, please review._


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